This morning I stepped in a wet spot on the carpet. Turned out our 15 year-old pug, Buzz, couldn’t hold it and decided to piss right next to our bed…on my side. Then, on the way home from picking up my stepson from school, I was asked: “What does U-R-I-N-A-T-I-N-G spell?” I told him.

“What does that mean?”
“To go pee. Why?”
“A jackal gets the desert hedgehog to uncurl by urinating on it. Then he attacks it.”

A few hours later, back at the house, I prepared to give Squid a bath. Standing at the edge of the tub, I felt my foot get warm. And wet. Squid smiled as he peed on me and my flip-flop.

So, that’s something.

And now, top five reasons I haven’t been blogging that often.

One: I don’t have anything interesting to say…unless you want to hear about multiple pee.

Two: By the time I sit down to write, it is usually late at night and I am too tired to string together words that make any sort of sense.

Three: I forget.

Four: God of War II

Five: Internet time is spent searching for and organizing everything BIRTHDAY! (One more week until the big day!…Squid turns one next Friday!)

I’m so not impressed with American Idol this season. I like Lakisha and I really hope she wins, but then I have a soft spot for single moms. Besides her, though, there really isn’t a fabulous, mind-blowing singer on the show. Even with Lakisha, I feel like she is predictable and to a certain degree boring. Do something different, girl!

I was totally impressed with Gina last night, though. She rocked. She was actually the best of them all. So, who goes home tonight? I hope Sanjanya or whatever his name is. He really kills and NOT in a good way. But, hey! Gwen is performing tonight. Awesome. I mean, Gwen who?

A few week ago I made a big deal about starting The Friday Five. What I forgot to tell you is that I have commitment issues. Needless to say, a few Fridays have passed now with no Friday Five. I’d make today The Friday Fifteen to make up for my absence, but that would seriously bore you.

Top five movie scenes that make me cry:

One: Eulogy in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Two: Dumbo. All of it. Oh my god, that movie should be outlawed. When Dumbo’s mother is taken away to the circus and is all locked up behind bars and starts to wildly trumpet in pain. Then, when she is saying goodbye to Dumbo, stroking him with her trunk through the cage. UGH!

Three: The end of Where The Red Fern Grows when the boy visits the graves of his dead dogs and sees the red fern growing over them both.

Four: Steel Magnolias - two scenes make me cry every time. The one where Sally Field is in the hospital visiting Shelby and she refuses to leave, desperately showing her old photographs, crying and talking to her in her coma. And the one at the end where she breaks down at the funeral, screaming, “Daughters are supposed to outlive their mothers!” Oh my gosh, I almost started crying just now!

Five: This scene in Blade Runner.

Squid took his first steps today! He’s been standing alone and balancing himself pretty well for about a month now, and has tried to step forward before. The furthest he’s gotten is one or one and a half steps before he falls on his butt again. I haven’t really considered these attempts his “first steps” because he hasn’t really traveled any distance. But today, he actually moved forward 4 steps! I think he might have gone further had I not been so close. As soon as he realized he could just fall forward in my arms, he did just that. I’m so proud of him! I wish I had it on tape, but I’ll try for next time. Yay, Squid!

ABC Family is a basic cable channel (number 52 where I live). They air shows like 7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls, Sabrina The Teenage Witch and ancient reruns of Full House. It’s a channel in a cluster of other “kid-appropriate” channels that run from 51 (Animal Planet) to 55 (Disney Channel). In other words, our 9 year-old stepson knows that when he sits down to watch television, channels 51 to 55 are the green light channels, the only ones he is allowed to watch. And, being the very good boy he is, he sticks to those channels religiously.

So, why did I turn on the television last night to find The Sixth Sense playing on Channel 51, the one labeled ABC Family? Seriously. Sunday night, at 7:00.

Great movie. Awesome twist. NOT FOR KIDS! So what if Haley Joel Osment is the star. Who cares that he was, what, eleven when he made the movie? That doesn’t mean it’s OK for children. That little girl in Poltergeist was probably only ten or eleven, but does that suddenly make it a family film?

I thought maybe I was overreacting, that I had forgotten most of the movie, that maybe it was, in fact, just fine for kids. And because my stepson wasn’t around last night, I started watching it. Turns out, there are many scenes in the movie that are incredibly scary. Like the one where the kid sees the dead ghosts hanging from their necks in the hallway at school. Or the one where the dead woman turns around in the kitchen to expose her bare arms that have been cut around the wrists and are bleeding. Or how about the one where the little girl who died from being poisoned by her mother shows up under the bed, green foam dripping out of her mouth?

I have no idea what the film is rated, but I do know, without a doubt, it shouldn’t be airing on ABC Family. What is with trying to make our children grow up so fast!? I understand that a good portion of kids now are so desensitized by television and video games and what not, but shit. You know we’re really in trouble when The Sixth Sense qualifies as Sunday night sit-down for families.

I blame Michael Jackson. He started it with his freaky Thriller video in the ’80’s. That thing gave me nightmares for months. Now we’ve replaced The Man From Snowy River with The Sixth Sense. “Come on, honey. Sit down and watch this truly terrifying film right before bed. Oh, and ‘Sweet Dreams!’”

Could Squid be practicing for a future in music?

His latest pastime is propping himself against the bookshelf which houses the stereo system, “choosing” records he wants to listen to, and rocking out.

Here he is yesterday selecting his favorite album and showing me he can cut the rug.

And here he is today sifting through the collection.

DJ Squid, anyone?

It never fails. As soon as we start seeing nice days, I get that urge to purge. We managed to dump a bunch of stuff last weekend at the family garage sale, and just this morning, I donated a few more handfuls to UCP. I’m starting to go nuts from the amount of clutter filling my house and garage. It’s so liberating to get rid of crap you’ve held on to for no good reason other than, “I might need that someday.” Someday? When, in the year 2038?

Besides, Jason and I have our eye on an adorable house and I’m already thinking in moving terms. The less we have to move, the better. We’ve been casually looking for places for the past few years, but we’ve never been this serious about it. I am so ready to leave the renting days behind and have my own little place that is MINE! Well, you know, ours. BUT MINE!

We’re coming up on Squid’s first birthday and I am so excited, but also a little nervous. First of all, we are planning a party in Golden Gate Park. In April. It could either be an amazing, mind-blowing, totally awesome-beyond-words day of the most beautiful weather possible - sun shining, cool breeze floating in from the ocean, not a cloud in the sky…or….it could be the other kind of San Francisco April day that we’re not even going to talk about. Everyone out there cross your fingers for the former!

I read something, I think in Parenting magazine, about how a baby’s first birthday party should be really quiet and mellow, with like 10 people max, at home for a few hours, the end. But fuck it, this is Squid’s FIRST freakin’ party, yo! Why the hell do I want to have it at my crazy, messy house where he hangs out every other day of the year?! Where would we put the guests?

Anyway, that just sounds way too boring. Playing in the park with lots of devoted admirers sounds much better! So, now I just have to iron out the details - food, games, a cake. I can’t wait. A year already, it’s insane. I feel the same as the day I was admitted to the hospital - so thrilled and so ready to be a mom. That feeling I had when I first saw him is the same feeling I have every time I look at him. It sounds extremely sappy, but there is a reason for that. It is.